CHAPTER FOURTEEN


"Melt that?" the smithy cried incredulously. "That's Ancient-technology steel! My forge won't touch it!"

"Then sever it," Neq said.

"You don't understand. It would take a diamond drill to dent that metal. I just don't have the equipment."

No doubt an exaggeration, for Helicon had made the weapon. But these northerners were closer to the past wonders than were the nomads, having houses and heaters and even a few operating machines, and so they stood in greater awe of the Ancients. Neq himself stood in awe, after learning what had been done at Helicon. Perhaps this smithy was superstitious; at any rate, he would not do the job.

"I must be rid of it," Neq said. As long as his sword remained, he was a killer. Who would fall next--Vara? Tyl? Dr. Jones? The sword had to go.

The smithy shook his head. "You have to cut off your arm at the elbow. And that would probably kill you, because we don't have medical facilities in this town for such an operation. Find the man who put that sword on you; let him get it off again."

"He is three thousand miles away."

"Then you'll just have to wear it a while longer."

Neq looked at his sword-arm, frustrated. The shining blade had become an anathema to him, for while he wore it he was inseparable from his guilt.

He looked about the shop, unwilling to give up so readily. Metal hung from all the walls--horse shoes, plowshares (so that was what the crazies had suggested he make his sword into, facetiously!) axes, bags of nails. All the products of the smithy's art. The man was evidently competent; he must make a good living, in the fashion of these people who worked for recompense. In one corner dangled a curved piece of metal with a row of little panels mounted along a center strand. Neq could envision no possible use for it.

The smithy followed his gaze. "Don't you nomads believe in music?"

"A harp!" Neq exclaimed. "You made a harp!"

"Not I," the man said, laughing. He took it down fondly. "This is no harp; it has no strings. But it is a musical instrument. A glockenspiel. See--these are chimes--four-teen plates of graduated size, each a different note. I traded a hundred pounds of topgrade building spikes for this. I'm no musician, but I know fine metalwork! I've no idea who made it, or when--before the Blast, maybe. You play it with a hammer. Listen."

The smithy had become quite animate as he described his treasure. He fetched a little wooden hammer and struck lightly on the plates. The sound was like bells, seldom heard m the crazy demesnes. Every tone was clear yet lingering, and quite lovely.

Neq was entranced. This evoked old and pleasant memories. There had been a time when he was known for his voice as well as his sword... before the fall of the empire and horrors thereafter. He had sung to Neqa....

He could not make his sword into a plowshare, obviously, but it gave him an idea. He did not have to cut off his weapon; he merely had to nullify it. To make it impossible for him to fight.

"The glock and spiel--fasten it to this sword so it won't come off," he said.

"To the sword! A marvelous instrument like this?" The smithy's horror was genuine.

"I have things to barter. What do you require for it?"

"I would not sell this glockenspiel for barter or for money! Not when it is only going to be destroyed by a barbarian with no appreciation for culture. Don't you understand? This is a musical instrument'."

"I know music. Let me have your little hammer."

"I won't let you close to an antique like this! Get out of my shop!"

Neq started to raise his sword, but caught himself. This was the very reaction he sought to quell: sword before reason. He had to convince the smithy, not intimidate him.

He looked about again. There was a barrel of water near the great anvil, and he was thirsty. He had walked all day with Tyl and Vara, and come into this village on sudden inspiration when he saw the smithy shop. If the man could only be made to understand....


All day I faced the barren waste

without the taste of water--

Cool, clear, water!

Dan and I with throats burned dry

and souls that cry for water--

Cool, clear, water!


The smithy stared at him, astonished. "You can sing! I never heard a finer voice!"

Neq had not known he was going to sing. The need had arisen, the mood fit--and a silence of six years had been broken. "I know music," he said.

The man hesitated. Then he pushed the glockenspiel forward. "Try it with this."

Neq took the hammer awkwardly in his pincers and tapped a note. The sound thrilled him, more perfect than any voice could be. He shifted key to match, striking the same note steadily to make a beat.


The nights are cool and I'm a fool

each star's a pool of water--

Cool, clear, water!


The smithy considered. "I would not have believed it! You want this to play?"

Neq nodded.

"Price was not my objection. I see you would have trouble playing the glockenspiel in the wilderness, unless it were attached. Yes. It could be done... I would have to coat the blade with an adhesive... but you would never be able to fight again. Do you realize that?"

They bargained, and it was done. He became Neq the Glockenspiel.

"A what?' Vara demanded, surprised and suspicious. "You have beaten your sword into a what?'

"A glockenspiel. A percussion instrument. My sword was too bloody."

She faced away angrily. Tyl smiled.

They traveled south and east. Tyl and Neq were returning to make their report to Dr. Jones. Vara, though she did not see it that way, was that report. She was the only one remaining who could answer the necessary questions about the nature of Helicon's demise. But she thought she was coming to have her vengeance on Neq; she did not mean to let him escape.

Tyl did not start any conversations. Neq hardly felt like talking himself, and Vara remained sullen. They had about three thousand miles to go: between three and four months at their swift pace. It was not likely to be a pleasant trip.

But they had to work together, for the natives were generally unfriendly and the old hostels no longer existed even in the formal crazy demesnes. They were cutting across what had been known as western Canada, intending to skirt the southern boundaries of a series of large lakes, and the northern boundaries of the worst badlands. Tyl had a crazy map; it claimed such a route existed.

Someone had to forage each day for food; someone had to stand guard each night; someone had to get them safely through outlaw territories. Tyl did most of it at first. Then Vara, shamed, began to help.

Neq, stripped of his sword, could neither fight nor forage effectively. He was dependent on the other two, and mortified by the situation. It was hard to give up a weapon, and not merely in the circle! All he could do was keep watch--and for that he had to stay awake. That was not easy after a twelve hour hike, each day.

One night as they camped by a river, Neq consoled himself by striking the tip of his pincers against the bells of his glockenspiel. He had not tried to play it since leaving the smithy's shop. But the sound was not proper; metal on metal annoyed him. He took the little wooden hammer and tapped the notes experimentally, regaining the feel of the music. Soon he was running through the scales, improving his competence while the others slept. It was possible to play entire melodies with no more than the hammer! He began to hum, measuring his voice against the clear tones of the instrument. It was there in him yet: the joy of music.

Finally he unstopped the voice that had been dormant during the entire time of killing, and that had emerged only when his sword was buried. He sang, accompanying himself carefully on the glockenspiel:


Then only say that you'll be mine

And our love will happy be

Down beside some water flow

By the banks of the O-hi-o.


He sang all of it, though this was not that river and his voice, despite the smithy's compliment, was imperfect now, a creaky shadow of its prime. But the instrument gave him a certainty of key he had not had before, and the spirit of the melody suffused him with its odd rapture.

As he sang, he rocked to the lovely, tortured vision of it: the young woman taking a walk by the river strand, refusing to marry the suiter, being threatened by his knife at her breast, and finally drowned. An ugly story but a beautiful song--one of his favorites, before he had come too close to living it. There were tears in his eyes, making his watch difficult.

"Your wife--did you kill her too?"

He was not startled to find Vara awake. He had known he could not sing aloud without arousing her curiosity or ire. "I must have."

"I ask only because I have to," she said bitterly. "Tyl balked me, on pain I should know you. Before I kill you. I saw you had no bracelet."

"She was a crazy," he said, not caring what she might think about Neqa.

"A crazy! What have you to do with them?"

"I thought to rebuild Helicon."

"You lie!" she cried, clutching at her sticks, which were always with her, warrior-style.

Neq looked at her tiredly. "I kill. I do not lie."

She turned away. "I may not kill you yet."

"You want the mountain dead?"

"No!"

"Then tell me: what is Helicon to you? Were you not kept prisoner there, and betrayed at the end? Don't you hate it yet?"

"Helicon was my home! I loved it!"

He studied her in the moonlight, perplexed. "Do you want it restored, then, as I do?"

"No! Yes!" she cried, crying.

Neq let it be. He knew what grief was, and the burning for revenge. And futility. Vara was in the throes of it all, as he had been when Neqa died. As he was still. It might be months, years before she made sense to others or to herself, and she would not be so pretty, then.

He tapped the flat metal bells of the glockenspiel again, picking out a new tune. Then he sang, and Vara did not protest.

"I know my love by her way of walking And I know my love by her way of talking..."

Tyl slept on, though their conversation was not quiet.

"When I first saw Var," Vara said, "he was standing on the plateau of Mt. Muse, looking down from the rim. He could have dropped a rock on me, but he didn't, because he wasn't the kind to take advantage."

"Why should anyone drop a rock on you?" Neq demanded, disliking this reference to the dead man.

"We were meeting in single combat. You know that,"

"Why did Bob send a child?" Was the truth at last within reach?

"And after we fought, it was cold, and he held me so I would not shiver. He gave me his heat, for he was always generous."

They were working at cross purposes.

"Would you warm your enemy if he were cold?" she asked him.

"No."

"You see. Var was a giver of life, not of death."

She had meant to hurt him, and she had succeeded. How could he return to this bitter girl what he had taken from her?

"Ambush," Tyl murmured. "Well-laid; I saw it too late. You two break while I cover the retreat."

Neither Neq or Vara reacted openly; both were too well versed in tactics. They exchanged a glance of chagrin, for neither had been aware of the situation. But if Tyl said there was an ambush, there was an ambush, though the forest seemed deserted.

Vara turned nonchalantly and started back. Neq shrugged and followed, while Tyl whistled idly and moved toward a tree as though for a call of nature. But it was too late; the trap sprung, and they were neatly in it.

From front, back and sides armed men appeared and converged. They carried clubs and staffs and sticks. No blades, oddly. Now Neq understood how the three had walked into the trap: the ambushers came out of holes in the ground! The trapdoors were flush with the forest floor and covered with leaves so that nothing showed until they opened.

But this was a great deal of trouble for a mere ambush! And no sharp weapons! Why?

Tyl and Vera had run together the moment the men appeared. Now they stood back to back, sticks in each hand. Neq remained where he was; his first abortive motion to uncover his sword had reminded him that he was no longer armed. If he joined the other two he would only hamper them.

The men closed in. Neq remembered the similar maneuver of a tribe six years before, closing in on a truck. If he could have known in time to save Neqa... !

"Yield," the leader of the ambush said.

No one answered. They were too wise in the ways of outlawism to doubt that death would be cleanest in battle. Such elaborate preparations would not have been made merely to recruit tribesmen!

"Yield or die!" the leader said. A ring formed about the two stickers, and another around Neq. "Who are you?"

"Tyl of Two Weapons."

"Vara--the Stick."

The ambusher considered. "Only one Tyl of Two Weapons I know of, and this is pretty far out of his territory."

Tyl didn't bother to answer. His sticks remained ready; his sword hung at his side.

"If it is him, we won't take him alive," the leader said. "Or his woman."

Vara didn't deign to correct him. Her sticks were ready too.

"Why would he travel without his tribe?" another man inquired. "And with a girl young enough to be his daughter?"

"That's why, maybe," the leader said. He came over to Neq. "But this one doesn't talk, and he covers his weapon. Who are you?"

Slowly Neq raised his left arm. The loose sleeve fell away and the metal pincers came into view.

There was a murmur in the group. The leader stepped back. "I have heard of a man who had his hands cut off. So he had his sword grafted on, and--"

Neq nodded. "They were ambushers."

The circle about him widened as the men edged away.

"We have a gun," the leader said. "We do not want to kill you, but if you move--"

"We only pass through," Neq said. "We have no business with you." He was now talking to distract attention from Tyl, who might then get out his own gun unobserved. There were enough men here to overcome the little party, though that would not have been the case had Neq's blade been in place and Tyl's gun ready. The outlaw's gun was not the advantage they supposed.

"You have business with us," the leader said. "We require a service from you. Perform it and you shall go free with the wealth of our tribe on your shoulders. Fail it, and you shall die."

Neq ached with fury to be addressed in this manner, as though any threat by any straggling outlaw could move him. He had/destroyed a tribe of such arrogance before. But he had given up the sword. Now he would live or die without it. "What is your service?"

"Walk the haunted forest at night."

Neq stifled a laugh. "You fear ghosts?"

"With reason. By day the forest harms no one, and stands athwart our richest hunting-grounds, just a few miles down this trail. But the ghosts strike those who enter at night. First the blades, then the dull weapons. Banish our spook: walk it at night and live. We will reward you richly for breaking the spell. Our food, our equipment, our women--"

"Keep your trifles! Feed us today; tonight we challenge your ghost. Together. Not for your sake, but because it crosses our route."

"You will keep your sword covered in our camp?"

"I keep my arm covered if no man annoys me."

"And you?" the leader called to Tyl.

"And I," Tyl agreed, and Vara also nodded.

Slowly the encircling men lowered their weapons.

As the sun descended they were ushered to the edge of the haunted forest. It seemed normal--mixed birch, beech and ash, some pine, with pockets of pasture heavily grown. Rabbits scooted away from the party. Good hunting, certainly!

"Are there radiation markers near here?" Tyl inquired. "Some. But that danger is over. We have a click-box; the kill-rays are gone."

"Yet men still die," Tyl murmured.

"Only by night."

That certainly didn't sound like radiation. It didn't come and go; it faded slowly, and was not affected by daylight.

"If Var were here--" Vara began. And caught herself.

"It is about ten miles," the tribe leader said. "We have a smaller digging downstream. Sometimes we need to travel between the two at night--but we must bike twice as far, over the mountain. No one passes the valley by night."

"The river looks clean," Tyl observed. "Your footpath is open?"

"Throughout. There are no natural pitfalls, no killer-animals here. Once there were shrews, but we exterminated them. Now there are deer, rabbits, game-birds. No hunting animals."

"You have found bodies?"

"Always. Some without marking. Some mutilated. Some dead fighting. We never send a man alone or unarmed, yet all perish."

So they ambushed innocent travelers to send here, Neq thought. Very neat, but none too clever. Hadn't it occurred to them that whoever conquered the haunted forest might have second thoughts about the manner he had been introduced to it? He might decide on a bit of vengeance. In that case, solution of the forest riddle could be disastrous for the tribe.

Tyl began to walk. Neq and Vara followed quickly. It was not dark yet, but night would set in long before they got through the forest. A ten mile hike by night, rested and fed--routine, except for ghosts!

When they were well away from the tribesmen, they split, ducking down out of sight on either side of the trail. No word was spoken; all three were conversant with such technique. The greatest danger might be from the men behind, not the supposed ghosts in front. Strangers might be deliberately killed in the forest to sustain the notoriety of the region, for surely the tribesmen could not be entirely ignorant of the nature of the threat, whatever it was.

But no one was following. Cautiously the three proceeded, Tyl flanking the forest side of the trail, Vara following the river side, and Neq, who could not fight, moving cautiously down the center. He held a thin stick in his pincers, probing for deadfalls, and he walked hunched to avoid a potential trip-wire or hanging noose. He expected to encounter something deadly, and not a ghost!

In an hour they had covered less than two miles. Their extreme caution seemed to have been wasted; no threat of any kind materialized. But eight miles remained, and eight hours of darkness. The fear of the tribesmen had been genuine; perhaps they delved underground because of a lingering terror of the forest surface.

The way was beautiful, even at night. The somber trees overhung the path to the west, highlighted by the full moon, and the river coursed slowly on the east side, and great vines covered with night-blooming flowers lay along the ground. The heavy fragrance surrounded them increasingly, musky and refreshing in the slight breeze.

Neq recalled his childhood. It had been nice, then, with his family and his sister. All the subsequent glory and ruin of empire could not compare with that early security. Why had he left it?

Hig the Stick! The man had cast his lustful gaze on Nemi, Neq's young twin sister! Neq clenched his sword-hand in reminiscent fury and bravado--and remembered he had no hand. Yod the Outlaw had taken it--

Time twisted about. It was dark, but Neq could see well enough in the diffused moonlight. A shape was coming at him, and it was the shape of Yod. Yod, whose foul loin had--

Neq whipped up his gleaming sword and launched himself at the enemy. A head would ride the stake tonight!

Contact! But his sword did not handle properly. It clanged, a discordant jangle.

Shocked, he remembered. No sword! This was the glockenspiel, for making music.

He peered more carefully at his opponent. "Tyl! Do you raise your sword to me in anger?"

Startled, Tyl stepped back. "Neq! I mistook you for--someone else. But he is dead. I must be overtired. I do not raise my sword to you."

Mutually shaken, they retreated from each other. How could such a confusion have come about? Had the glockenspiel not sounded, they might easily have fought, and Tyl could have slain him unwittingly. What irony, when they had not yet even encountered the menace of the forest!

Another shape approached him, stealthily. But Neq was far too experienced to be caught unawares. This was not Tyl--it was not even male!

Neqa! Blonde Miss Smith, the crazy woman! He ran to embrace her.

"Minos!" she cried. She was naked; her bosom heaved in outline as she brought up her sticks.

Sticks? That could not be Neqa! It had to be--Vara. Coming to kill him. Coming for her vengeance.

But she dropped her weapon again. "I may not resist you, Minos. Come, spit me on your monstrous member. Only let Var go." And she spread her arms in a kind of invitation.

What was happening to her, to him, to Tyl? Neq had fancied Neqa before him; now Vara fancied Var. Or Minos, whoever he was. And Tyl had attacked....

Neq retreated, trying to straighten it out, but confused images continued to spin in his brain. The standing trees seemed menacing, the river was a giant snake, the darkness itself was suffocating. He felt the urge to fight, to kill, to destroy.

Now Tyl was coming again, bearing his sticks. Vara too. Neq got out of the way with almost pusillanimous haste, not liking this situation at all. Tyl might have his grudges and Vara might have reason to kill him, but this was not proper and certainly not normal for either.

Tyl met Vara. "Get out of my camp, you slut!" Tyl cried, raising his sticks.

"No, Bob, no!" she screamed, retreating but keeping her face to him. "Touch me and I kill you!"

They were about to fight each other--and Neq's status was not the issue! They were like demons, prowling about. each other in the night, too cautious to strike until the blow could be lethal. Like outlaws, killers of Neqa....

Neq charged, his sword whistling. Death to them both!

But he did what he never did: snagged his foot in a ground-vine and crashed down ignominiously. The dirt and leaves of the forest floor ground into his face, and the glockenspiel jangled again--an incongruous burst of sound.

Neq rolled over and spat out mud. His body had been humbled, but for the moment his mind was clear. These were the ghosts! These maddened people, seeing visions and attacking each other! That was the death that lurked in this forest!

The fragrance of the night-bloomers came again, anesthetizing his nostrils with its splendor. Like alcohol, the fumes altered his perspective, made the real unreal, the unreal real....

There was killing to be done. The spooks were almost upon him. Neq lurched up, flung himself down the steep bank, into the black water of the river. The shock of cold brought his brain to full clarity again.

There was death here, all right. Death from the spirits. Vapor spirits--windblown alcohol that evoked the kill-passions. A gaseous murderer who left no footprint, no scar. The haunt of the forest. He knew it for what it was, now--yet it could not be avoided. A man had to breathe! Physical shocks could abate it only temporarily; already that insidious fragrance was seeping through his nose and into his lung and on to his brain, modifying his perception. substituting more evocative images....

The sword could not battle this! Only an unarmed man, alone, could hope to survive. And what man would enter this forest that way?

Neq looked at his glistening glockenspiel, the metal glowing faintly in the moonlight. Already it was wavering into the sword again. But it was a ghost sword; his real sword was dead. The ghost-sword could deliver him only into death, for he would be weaponless without believing it.

Suddenly he felt lonely. His existence had never seemed so futile.

He tapped the sword, finding the bells of the glockenspiel by touch and sound. That was one way to keep reminding himself that what he saw was false. He began to pick out a tune, there in the water--the water that seemed like rich warm blood--and the notes were lovely and clear. They expanded to form a melody, each note bearing its private animation but the theme expanding to encompass the world. The tune was marching; each beat was a bright foot. He saw them treading into the sky. JHe sang:


"You must walk this lonesome valley

You have to walk it by yourself!

Oh, nobody else can walk it for you..."


The melody took hold of him compellingly, carried him up out of the river, gave him a glorious and sad strength.

"We must walk this lonesome valley--"

Shapes came at him, male and female... but the music daunted them. Like a cordon of warriors, the band of notes swept back the opposition, softened its determination. He sang and sang, more wonderfully than ever before.


"We have to walk it by ourselves

Oh, nobody else can walk it for us..."

Then, hesitatingly, the shapes joined in.

"We have to walk it by ourselves..."


With burgeoning confidence Neq started another sequence, marching down along the path while his body dripped wet water and the others followed.


"Takes a worried man

To sing a worried song!"


and the ghost-echo agreed, and they sang together, louder.


"It takes a worried man

To sing a worried song!

I'm worried now,

But I wont be worried long!"


Victoriously, Neq continued, throwing new forces of song and music into the fray as the old troops lost their potency against the ghost-fragrance. On down the path, through the dark forest, singlemindedly dispelling the insidious fumes with voice and instrument, leading the captive shapes out of the lonesome valley.

Then it was done. Embarrassed, Neq broke off his singing, finding his voice hoarse. They had walked and sang for hours. Tyl and Vara were there, shaking their heads as though waking from nightmare.

Dawn was coming.


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